Magnetoelectronics

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The magnetoelectronics is a field of electronics , of a novel approach to the realization of electronic components describes. While in conventional microelectronics information is described by electrons and defect electrons , in magnetoelectronics this function is taken over by the magnetic moment of the spin ("up" or "down").

Nowadays the more general term spintronics is mostly used , u. a. in the knowledge that one can not only control the spin with magnetic fields , but z. B. can also switch with electric fields .

principle

The basis of all physical effects used in magnetoelectronics is the change in the electrical resistance of ferromagnetic thin film (systems) depending on the relative orientation of their magnetization or an externally applied magnetic field.

In detail, these are the following magnetoresistive effects :

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for the discovery of the GMR effect .

Applications

An application of magnetoelectronics that has been on the market since 2004 is the realization of hard disk heads that use the GMR effect. GMR sensors are also used for other applications. MRAM (Magnetic Random Access Memory) storage elements are in the application-oriented development phase . In the basic research phase, however, are z. B. the implementation of logic functions based on magnetic spin and mechanical or bio-sensors based on magnetoresistive effects.

literature